Azernews.Az

By Leman Mammadova

SOCAR Petroleum SA - a subsidiary of SOCAR in Romania is planning to open 17 filling stations under the SOCAR brand this year, the company told Report.

Number of SOCAR filling stations will increase in large cities. According to the long-term development strategy of the company, the number of filling stations is planned to increase to 80 in the next few years.

“The company has developed a long-term development strategy in Romania. The works are underway in accordance with the program. SOCAR filling stations are located mainly in major cities with heavy traffic, as well as on highways in the direction of Central Europe.”

It was emphasized that SOCAR has become one of the five key players in the energy market of Romania.

SOCAR Petroleum SA has been operating in Romania since 2011 to manage the purchase and sale of petroleum products in Romania and provide supply services that meet international standards and a diversified transportation infrastructure.

There are 42 filling stations under SOCAR brand in 19 Romanian regions.

Total investments made by SOCAR to Romania amounted to $ 77.7 million in 2011-2017. SOCAR paid $ 86.4 million tax to Romanian budget in the same period.

As a result of the activities of SOCAR Petroleum SA in Romania, energy cooperation between the two countries is expanding, at the same time, the Romanian companies are actively participating in the implementation of energy projects in Azerbaijan.

SOCAR carries out various operations, including sales, transportation and trade operations across all continents in more than 40 countries, among over 100 points of sale. The company is also exploring opportunities to enter new markets and develop operations in existing markets.

ROMGAZ and TRANSGAZ, two of the most important Romanian companies in the natural gas sector, have long-standing cooperation relationships with SOCAR.

Recently, SOCAR has expressed its interest in cooperation with ROMGAZ in exploration and production of gas in the Black Sea, while Romanian company voiced its intention to cooperate with SOCAR both on the onshore area of Azerbaijan and on the offshore area in the Caspian Sea as well.

Earlier, Transgaz and SOCAR signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that envisages strengthening cooperation in the gas transportation, studying opportunities to use Romania’s potential in the gas transit and distribution at the expense of gas supplies from Azerbaijan, the Caspian region and other promising directions, jointly studying the possibilities of cooperation in the supply and trading of natural gas and LNG in the Romanian market on the basis of long-term contracts and spot trading as part of the AGRI (Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania Interconnector) project.

AGRI energy project is aimed at diversifying the energy supply sources of the European Union and involves the transport of Azerbaijani natural gas to Romania and Central Europe. AGRI may be considered as additional supply route for the BRUA interconnector (which is expected to connect the natural gas transmission systems between Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria) currently under execution. The countries, engaged in the BRUA project may take over some of the gas volumes that could be available through the Southern Corridor's infrastructure.

The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority projects for the EU and envisages the transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian region through Georgia and Turkey to Europe.

The participants of the AGRI project are SOCAR, Georgia's Oil and Gas Corporation, as well as MVM (Hungary) and Romgaz (Romania).

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Leman Mammadova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888

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